Car restoration aggravation 'worth it all in the end"

Published 1:00 am, Wednesday, January 21, 2009

[Editor's Note: The following is a piece submitted by Paradice Classic Cruisers, a car club in New Milford.]

I bought my Ford Gran Torino Sport from a Ford factory representative who would park the car at
Bragg Motor Sales
, a Lincoln-Mercury dealership in Danbury.

It was his personal car. He mentioned to my brother that he was going to sell it and my brother told me about it.

I bought the 1973 car for $2,800 on May 9, 1974. It had 14,438 miles on it. It was my second car, hence the GWH 2 license plate.

I had always heard people say they wish they still had their first car. I didn't buy this car with that in mind; it was an every day driver.

I also had a 1963 Ford Fairlane 500 sport coupe (260 V8/4 speed), my first car. I would drive this car in bad weather and in the winter.

In 1980, I put the Fairlane in storage -- 10 years ago I gave it away; it needed a lot of work and I could not restore two cars -- and the Gran Torino became more of a daily driver.

The Torino went through the whole spectrum of car seats, two kids and had a go-anywhere anytime of life, although it wasn't driven in the snow. It also sat outside all of the time and the sun took a toll on it.

I had wanted to restore the car for quite some time, but college educations and other things had to come first.

I remember going to
Marcus Dairy
some Saturday nights and parking my Torino in the spectator parking lot.

As I looked at all the great cars, I would say that some day I would be able to park my car there with all the restored cars.

When the car had 202,371 miles on it, I pulled the motor out and, with a friend, rebuilt it. It's a 351 Cleveland motor, .030" over, 375 HP Comp cam, roller rockers and has all the good stuff.

A few years after that, I got serious about restoring the car. That's when I began to experience bad luck with the restoration process.

You cannot buy new body panels, so I bought used ones from a guy in Atlanta. I sent the panels to be media blasted, a task that should have taken a month but took four.

I sent some chrome parts out to be repainted. They came back with some of the chrome peeling off. I sent them back and it took 10 months and many phone calls to get them back.

I sent the car to somebody to get all the body panels put on. One month turned into four months.

A friend of mine who owns a very busy body shop said he would try to paint the car for me when his work slowed down. After 14 months and his still-busy business, he decided he did not want to paint the car if he couldn't invest the time to do it the right way.

Long story short, I got
Ralph Baldwin
and
Jason Knapp
of American Graffiti in New Milford to paint the car the original blue color. They had it for five months.

I brought the car home on March 24, 2008.

I had really gotten discouraged with all of the restoration problems I had along the way and I felt like giving up many times.

But in the end, after all the time, aggravation and money, the final results were worth it all.

I have gotten many compliments from people who have seen the car, thumbs up while I am driving, a handful of trophies, and I've gone to many car shows and made new friends.

The car now has 241,000-plus miles on it with the original 4-speed trans and posi rear end.

Although it's not a daily driver anymore, I still drive it as much as I can and now I am proud to do so.